1. Field
Methods and apparatuses consistent with the present inventive concept relate to a method of receiving game streaming data regarding a particular game permitting accessory participation, and a method of transmitting game streaming data to a user terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Game industries that have been steadily growing all over the world are expected to create demand for low-priced terminals, or demand for a function of allowing the playing of games on a television (TV). Game streaming services have been developed to satisfy such demands.
According to a game streaming technique, a plurality of cloud nodes are formed on a large-scale, and computer games are played in the cloud nodes rather than in a game console or a high-performance personal computer (PC). Images of a game formed at a cloud node are transmitted and reproduced in a user terminal according to a streaming method, via a wired/wireless network, and a user input generated in the user terminal is directly transmitted to the cloud node and reflected in the game.
A cloud computing-based game streaming service needs to provide game service quality similar to that of game consoles or high-performance PCs and should thus satisfy the following four requirements.
First, high responsiveness, as achieved in a personal game console, should be guaranteed. In the case of a first-person shooting game, it is known that a terminal-to-terminal delay time should be 100 msec or less. However, this requirement is difficult to satisfy, since game images and user inputs are transmitted via a wired/wireless network; such data takes a lot of time to transmit.
Second, a high image quality should be provided. Image data is transmitted at a maximum compression rate in order to service high-quality images (e.g., 720 p or more) of a high-performance game by using a limited network bandwidth. However, in this case, compression complexity is increased and it thus takes a lot of time to compress the image data, thereby degrading game responsiveness.
Third, high responsiveness and high image quality should be maintained constantly. When services are provided using network resources shared by a large number of people, game responsiveness and image quality are likely to be degraded. Thus, uniform service quality needs to be provided while minimizing degradation in game responsiveness and image quality.
Fourth, a service system should be constructed at low cost. Since cloud nodes involve expensive equipment, each including a high-performance central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU), it is expensive for a service provider to form cloud nodes on a large-scale. Furthermore, if a user wants to use services via a low-priced PC or a mobile terminal and has to pay a high price to construct cloud nodes, particularly, if a user has to pay more than if he/she builds a high-performance PC, then it may be impossible for a service provider to run a viable service business by using cloud nodes.